Ica, Peru
This post is based on a journal entry originally recorded on May 25, 2008.
Early in the afternoon our Peruvian Mystery Machine pulled up at El Catador Winery outside Ica. The further we got from the coast, the higher and drier the terrain became. Already we were driving through low foothills the color and texture of old, crumbly chocolate. Every river valley was plowed into fields and dotted with more of the reed-and-stick shacks we had seen along the coast. Ica itself was little more than a large village, a disorderly cluster of crumbling buildings baking in the semi-desert heat.
El Catador was down a side street in a neighborhood of trash heaps, rusted cars and stray dogs. Glicerio parked the van underneath a shelter made of huge logs and thatched with some kind of palm fronds or reeds. I have no idea where they got such massive beams, as I never saw a tree higher than fifteen feet until we got to Cuzco. From outside, the winery looked disappointing and flyblown, but as soon as we stepped through the door it was transformed. Inside was a restaurant with picnic tables under a shady awning made of the same log-and-reed construction as the parking shade outside. The walls were brick painted with restful shades of red and white, and all the trim was painted white in the colonial style.
A young man named Jesús met us and led us back outside for a tour of the winery. We went down a set of stairs and down an alley. Jesús was dressed for work, with a dirty T-shirt, jeans, and a pair of heavy gloves. The back of his T-shirt read:
“Si a Ica vino,
y no tomó vino,
A que mierda vino?”
Which means, “If you came to Ica, and you didn’t drink wine, what the hell did you come for?”
Jesus leads us to a large stone pit about two feet deep. This is where, every year, the harvested grapes are brought and stomped for their juice. This is apparently a big local thing, and it turns into a party. On the walls of the restaurant are pictures of local girls with stained feet and sashes reading, “Miss Pisco” or “Grape Princess 2005”, or something similar.
Most of the juice runs out through a pipe into a neighboring trough, but afterward the remaining grapes are collected and pressed into disks resembling large purple cheese wheels. The wheels are taken to a giant screw press made out of a hard local wood called huarango. The press removes all the remaining juice, which is filtered through baskets to remove the pulp and then allowed to ferment for fifteen days. After fermentation, some of the juice is poured off and kept for wine, and the rest is run through a system of hot and cold pipes to make the famous liquor called Pisco.
Pisco comes from the Quechua word pisqu, meaning little bird. Originally the grape juice was fermented in long jugs with pointed tops, which look vaguely like birds’ beaks. Jesus took us to an underground room where the fermented, heated and distilled pisco is poured off into barrels. There is apparently something of an art to this, as the beginning and end of every batch of pisco are poisonous methanol. It takes a skilled or brave worker to recognize when the pisco is drinkable. The “head” and “tail”, as the undrinkable portions are called, are poured into different barrels and saved to clean out the machinery.
We finished the tour by going back into the restaurant to try the different types of pisco and wine. Jesus gave us some of the “green” wine, aged only 15 days. This was sweet and mild, and only a little stronger than grape juice. Next we tried another type of sweetened wine, which was way too sugary for my taste. Next we had the Peruvian classic, Pisco Sour: pisco mixed with lime juice, sugar and beaten egg white. I found this a little sweet at first, but eventually grew to like it. We tried pure pisco, which I liked so much I bought a bottle of, and “pisco Bailey’s”, Pisco mixed with cream and fig paste (for texture). This was interesting, but I wouldn’t want to drink much more of it.
As the morning turned to afternoon, we hopped back into the van and drove on to Huacachina, an oasis in the desert between Ica and Nazca.
